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22
At five till seven we walked over to the MacCruders’. I wore a newly laundered pair of jeans, a red flannel shirt, and my cowboy boots.
When Mrs. MacCruder met me at the door, she looked me up and down approvingly. “Now that’s more like it.”
I met Mr. MacCruder, who was a weather-beaten, laconic man in his 60’s who preferred one-word responses. The only time he talked at length was when Ryan asked him about the ranch, and how everything had been holding up. He wasn’t exactly grumpy… but I don’t think I saw him smile once the entire evening. He just seemed like he was patiently biding his time until he had to go out and hunt down some cattle rustlers or something.
Dinner was a delicious stew made of beef, potatoes, carrots, and onions. There was also fresh-baked bread, sweet butter, and a tossed salad made of lettuce and vegetables fresh from the garden. Ryan had brought over a couple of bottles of wine, and we each had a couple of glasses – all except for Mr. MacCruder, who stuck with Budweiser out of a bottle. Dessert was German chocolate cake, homemade from scratch. Between that and the wine, I felt I had about died and gone to heaven.
Mrs. MacCruder chatted nonstop in her warm, outgoing way, probably grateful to have an audience who didn’t respond solely with ‘Yup’ or ‘Nope’ or ‘Mrm.’ Ryan played along and asked her all sorts of questions about the horses, the neighbors (the nearest of which was about a mile away), and her side business of selling jewelry over the internet.
It was dark outside when I heard it. I was feeling relaxed and warm, my head nice and toasty from the wine, when all of a sudden there was this faraway scream – but guttural and inhuman, like something out of
The Exorcist.
It was followed immediately by the much closer screeching and neighing of the horses out in the barn.
I almost knocked over my wine glass as I sat bolt upright and grabbed the edge of the table. “What was
that?!”
“Cougar,” Mr. MacCruder grunted.
“You hear them up in the hills sometimes at night,” Mrs. MacCruder nodded.
I looked to Ryan for confirmation.
“Don’t worry, they don’t come down here,” he soothed me.
“Much,” Mr. MacCruder added.
“Don’t worry the girl, Charles,” Mrs. MacCruder scolded him.
“I’m not worried,” I said, though anybody with eyes or ears could tell I was lying.
“They stick to the hills,” Ryan said.
“But the hills aren’t that far away, are they?” I asked, my voice unsteady.
“Nope,” Mr. MacCruder said.
“Charles,” Mrs. MacCruder snapped.
“Trust me, Kaitlyn,” Ryan smiled. “I’ve been coming here all my life, and I’ve never seen a cougar on the ranch. Ever.”
“Have
you?”
I asked Mr. MacCruder.
Mrs. MacCruder was glaring at him, though, which I think tempered his answer.
“‘Casionally,” was all he said.
Ryan had said
I’ve never seen a cougar on the ranch.
“Do you see them up in the hills?” I asked.
“Maybe once every three or four years.”
“Yeah, but you only came for a few weeks at a time,” I reminded him.
“It’s really rare to see one, Kaitlyn. They stay away from people.”
I turned to Mr. MacCruder. I figured
he
would give me the straight scoop. “What about you? How often do
you
see them up in the hills?”
He shrugged. “Some.”
Well, at least it wasn’t ‘lots.’
